Craig of the Creek Oneshots

Jason x Craig - Late Night Thoughts Lead to Lasting Love (with a bit of luck)

To put it simply, Craig was confused. Romantically confused.

For as long as he could remember, he knew he liked guys. Coming from a family that was accepting and loving, he knew that it was perfectly okay, and not something to be ashamed of. His parents made sure he knew that they loved him, no matter who he decided to date.

He had had several crushes in the past, but those feelings had faded within a week or so. That's what utterly bewildered him about this crush. It had been months, and he still found himself infatuated with Jason.

That's right, Jason. The Junior Forest Scouts leader himself.

Jason was supposed to be his enemy, his main rival, his arch nemesis. He was supposed to hate him, not want to hold his hand! Yet, these feeling persisted, because, whether he liked it or not, love didn't have to make sense.

Admitting this crush to himself was hard.

'Admitting it to my friends would earn me an even harder hit on the head from Kelsey,' he thought to himself. 'To knock my brain back into place' he knew she would claim. Though really, she's just always looking for an excuse to hit something with her sword. That's what made Kelsey, Kelsey. 'And I wouldn't want her any other way,'

Craig thought to himself with a small smile.

Laying in bed, not being able to sleep, Craig searched his brain for answers about when this crush started. Thinking as far back as he was able, he tried to pinpoint exactly when this cursed crush began to blossom.

He supposed it started the night of the fossil dig. That was the day he really began paying attention to Jason, not just writing him off as a jerk.

A tiny bit of Jason's true colors shone through that day. Jason truly doesn't mean to boss people around. He simply just wants to help, but doesn't know the correct means of doing so.

Not to mention the fact that he practically saved Craig's life that day, along with the lives of his closet friends.

After the dam broke, Jason could have went about his day and left Craig. Instead, he stuck around to grab Craig's hand, pulling everyone to safety.

"Jason, you saved us," Craig remembers saying, future self now hating that it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Craig recalled the following day, after he had dropped his choco roll on accident, Jason handed it back to him. Their hands touched briefly, leaving Craig with a new, strange feeling in his stomach.

Later that night, as he lie in bed, he recognized that feeling. Love. He urged himself to repress it, pushing it deep down inside. He couldn't like Jason.

And so he rolled over, and forced himself to go to sleep, with a simple question lingering in his mind. Why not?

***

The day Craig and his friends found the Game Keepers books was the day those repressed feelings came back in full force.

He remembered the fear he felt when he discovered that the books were buried in Jason's backyard, but he masked this emotion with annoyance. 'I'm supposed to hate Jason' he had to remind himself. But if he was being real with himself, he was terrified. Craig knew that if he saw Jason, he might let his real feelings slip, and he absolutely did not want his friends to know about his crush.

It's not that he didn't think they would be accepting, he just wanted these emotions to be his at the moment. He didn't want to share them with anyone.

So, when Jason answered the door that faithful day, Craig played the part he knew he was supposed to play. He was cruel and sarcastic towards Jason. Maybe a little too much.